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Yeah, it's not usually that hard to tell when someone's... "passing", I think the term would be.

I've seen some good drag kings/queens, but the average person on an MMO ain't.

 EmilCrane wrote:
I don't play MMOs, but I jumped a lot in Morrowind and Oblivion, but not as much in skyrim. In morrowind it was because I found out that jumping in confined space sometimes triggered a bug where you glided around the room mid jump, very fun.

Both Morrowind and Oblivion had an Acrobatics skill that was leveled by jumping. If you're already locked into spending ten minutes running to your next destination, you might as well level your Athletics, Acrobatics and your spellcaster skills while you do it, right?

 AlexHolker wrote:

 EmilCrane wrote:
I don't play MMOs, but I jumped a lot in Morrowind and Oblivion, but not as much in skyrim. In morrowind it was because I found out that jumping in confined space sometimes triggered a bug where you glided around the room mid jump, very fun.

Both Morrowind and Oblivion had an Acrobatics skill that was leveled by jumping. If you're already locked into spending ten minutes running to your next destination, you might as well level your Athletics, Acrobatics and your spellcaster skills while you do it, right?

That too, part of the fun in gliding around the blamora mages guild was that you also leveled up as you did it. Acrobatics and athletics as minor skills for meximum leveling.

One of the reasons I don't play female characters in games that let you fully customize characters faces is because I have absolutely no idea how to get female characters looking good. I mean my sister can spend an hour in the Dragon Age character creator to make the perfect female warden, whereas I'm usually "strong jaw line, non-derpy eyes, decent hair, manly scar, good to go" (for a male character, just to clarify)

My user picture on dakka is one of my creepier looking characters.

To be fair, I found quite a few of the professionally made characters to be creepy, too.

@Lynata: Have you seen Prometheus yet? There's the main character which is not as cool as ripley but pretty crazy. There's also the cold and seemingly heartless woman on the ship which some think was an android though she was a leader.

To be fair I guess I get your point about there not being a lot of women in the aliens movies but at the same time a woman is always the hero of one. Guys are normally alien face rape bait.

This might also be weird to say but I enjoyed the family ripley seemed to have at the end of aliens. Then at the beginning of the third movie you basically hear that everybody died off screen.

Also as sad as it is I've only seen parts of most aliens movies. Perhaps I should sit down and give them a watch some day.

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Neil Patrick harris looks gay for some reason. Generally a gay person has a certain look in their face and I can kind of tell. Maybe that's a little weird but usually I can tell if somebody's gay by that. Not that it's bad and it's a big jump but I can tell more often these days.

To be fair I seem to be wrong before (my sister's boyfriend who looks gay and sounds gay when he talks) as well as somebody at my work that also sounds like both but seemingly has gotten with plenty of women. Perhaps it's me being unfair? Is that weird if somebody just looks gay or sounds gay (in my perception)? It's not even really anything but the vibes they throw out. Anyway maybe it's nothing.

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Really I was always of the opinion that the movie portrayed genders pretty freaking equally. I mean at the end of the day you still have genders preferring different things just like how you see a lot of women in more social work (like a whole crap ton more). There was also at least 2 bad *ss women in the unit and one that died early which wanted to have babies or something (that's pretty much all she said). Dizzy also pulled a pretty crazy stunt throwing a hand grenade straight into the mouth of a large fire-breathing alien and killing it instantly. Course that wouldn't save her an alien which clearly came out of nowhere and killed her. Just watch the scene before she dies and you'll see that the alien that killed her would've had to cover a ridiculous amount of distance to kill her. It's kind of dumb really. R.I.P. dizzy you were a better woman in that movie than the guy's on again off again girlfriend by a mile.

I felt the shower scene was awesome in a non-nudity sort of way. It was like elements of a girl's shower and a guy's shower without all the weird sexual flirtation you'd expect. It was almost nice to see. It's as if they managed an equality we could never dream of having in a lot of ways that seemed really good. It was very strange but welcoming somehow. It was an eerie scene. Also nudity .

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Omg yes lynata it still p*sses me off that people find women incapable of raping or raping men at least. Some alcohol, a date rape drug, lots of sleeping pills or a variety of ways can all do it. I've even heard guys say they enjoyed being raped by women (like a woman comes into their room while they sleep and just has sex with them while unconscious). Sure guys often do like sex but if a woman is not good looking or they just didn't like them then it can be as much rape as it would be for a woman to have it. I looked at an article about men getting raped just the other day and all I saw in it disgusted me by how little people care or help. It's wrong and something must be done to fix it even if nothing is changing.

 EmilCrane wrote:
One of the reasons I don't play female characters in games that let you fully customize characters faces is because I have absolutely no idea how to get female characters looking good. I mean my sister can spend an hour in the Dragon Age character creator to make the perfect female warden, whereas I'm usually "strong jaw line, non-derpy eyes, decent hair, manly scar, good to go" (for a male character, just to clarify)

My user picture on dakka is one of my creepier looking characters.

I will gladly spend an hour or more creating my characters' faces - male or female. Between my preferred look for the character I have in mind, and the customisation levels afforded by the more top-end RPGs and their various customisation mods, I can spend more time perfecting a few slider positions on the face creation screen than I can spend doing the opening quests.

Then, of course, you accidentally knock a certain slider that sends all the others out of whack, or you accidentally slide across the presets as you navigate to confirm your character's looks and manage to undo everything, and when you get in-game you spot that one angle that makes everything look terrible and it nags at you.

For games, I find myself playing females a lot more than males and I'm not sure why, especially since I prefer to write female characters over male ones. That isn't just to satisfy my own sexual desires and my strange lust for throwing unjustifiable lesbianism every which way, but I just feel more comfortable playing and writing females - and contrary to the start of this sentence, sexualisation of the characters and/or their preferences doesn't really come into it.

I have 8 characters in GW2, and only one is female. I've never put much thought into why. I'm a guy so picking guys as my characters just seems natural.

I've never attempted to pass as a female over the internet, even when playing my female necro, but I am often surprised how regularly people just assume that because my character is female I must be too. That many men play female characters isn't news so I'd think people wouldn't jump to that conclusion.

The harsh insults sometimes sent my way though when I correct people who assume I'm a girl can be more baffling, as if they think that just by playing a female character I'm attempt to trick them for some nefarious purpose.

Every time I bring a new female character into Stormwind (Glory to the Alliance) the same guy would whisper me being all nice before starting to ask if I was a busty young lass. Whenever I corrected him he would stop responding time to me. Once I actually went along with it and I got a sense that this man was either 13 or needed to get laid.

I also get a lot of proposals for cybering.

LordofHats wrote:I have 8 characters in GW2, and only one is female. I've never put much thought into why. I'm a guy so picking guys as my characters just seems natural.

I've never attempted to pass as a female over the internet, even when playing my female necro, but I am often surprised how regularly people just assume that because my character is female I must be too. That many men play female characters isn't news so I'd think people wouldn't jump to that conclusion.

The harsh insults sometimes sent my way though when I correct people who assume I'm a girl can be more baffling, as if they think that just by playing a female character I'm attempt to trick them for some nefarious purpose.

TheCustomLime wrote:Every time I bring a new female character into Stormwind (Glory to the Alliance) the same guy would whisper me being all nice before starting to ask if I was a busty young lass. Whenever I corrected him he would stop responding time to me. Once I actually went along with it and I got a sense that this man was either 13 or needed to get laid.

I also get a lot of proposals for cybering.

I've never experienced any of this; the people I meet on my female chars don't really seem to care enough to assume I'm female and bitch about it when I say I'm not, or to proposition me for certain cyberservices.

It must be something to do with the differences between US and European game servers; I rarely - if ever - experience any of the issues like these that American players tend to have.

To be fair, I was playing as a female Draenei on the Moonguard roleplaying server. Let us just say that there are many followers of Slaanesh there if you don't know what it is.

I've certainly never been propositioned I get referred to as 'she' on that character all the time, which I mostly ignore cause really getting upitty about that is petty.

The one time I remember was when some weirdo asked me if I was a lesbian (mature content followed), too which I replied all men are lesbians (), and he then proceeded to flame me for about five minutes asking when I was going to get my sex change operation. A very bizarre experience.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
To be fair, I was playing as a female Draenei on the Moonguard roleplaying server.

Not to mention that the Draenei, female ones in particular, are hit with Rule 34 so much. So. Much.

So I have noticed. It's not unwarranted, though. They're fricking hot.

The odd thing is I always expected my charie to be hit on during roleplay but either everyone just ignored her or just assumed she was a lesbian. The propositions were directed to me. I wonder why.

Some funny things I remember about playing females in MMOs. Female Tauren in WoW not being able to get into Molten Core dungeon through the "secret" entrance because their model was too big. And Age of Conan female Heralds of Xolti (i think?) did less DPS than their male counterparts because the animations for their attacks were slightly longer.

I play WoW a lot. Interestingly, as a female myself, I have 3 female characters and 8 male ones on my main account, and one of each on my secondary.

Why? I am not sure. Male models are often better I think. My main character is female, though.

However, as you might be able to guess from my avatar, Ashiraya is pretty far from your average kawaaaiiiiii Blood Elf.

 Sigvatr wrote:
I exclusively play female characters in MMORPGs - if I have to stare at a character's ass for tons of hours, I'd prefer it to be a female ass.

Groan.

 Dark Apostle 666 wrote:
I've played as female characters before, I'd say with maybe a 70/30 split male/female, and I do try to act as I imagine my character would (I love making up backstories) - though I admit, I expect my characters do all have certain shared traits (like an affinity for stealth over tanking)

I think it is very difficult to TRULY roleplay any character who isn't pretty similar to yourself - whether that be because they're a different gender or because they have an ideology you don't share (Like in Fallout NV, I find it very hard to play as a low-INT, melee-based Legion courier, because I don't connect so well with the mindset that character would have)

I find it difficult to roleplay as unreasonable. I roleplay evil and good-ish (I actually have difficulty RPing goody-two-shoes characters) peeps but they are all rather logical in their actions.

TheCustomLime wrote:So I have noticed. It's not unwarranted, though. They're fricking hot.

The odd thing is I always expected my charie to be hit on during roleplay but either everyone just ignored her or just assumed she was a lesbian. The propositions were directed to me. I wonder why.

Groan.

TheCustomLime wrote:Every time I bring a new female character into Stormwind (Glory to the Alliance) the same guy would whisper me being all nice before starting to ask if I was a busty young lass. Whenever I corrected him he would stop responding time to me. Once I actually went along with it and I got a sense that this man was either 13 or needed to get laid.

I also get a lot of proposals for cybering.

Groan.

 Melissia wrote:
Yeah, it's not usually that hard to tell when someone's... "passing", I think the term would be.

I've seen some good drag kings/queens, but the average person on an MMO ain't.

This raises an interesting question. How many people are actually selecting their avatar on the assumption that people will think they're that gender.

 dementedwombat wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Yeah, it's not usually that hard to tell when someone's... "passing", I think the term would be.

I've seen some good drag kings/queens, but the average person on an MMO ain't.

This raises an interesting question. How many people are actually selecting their avatar on the assumption that people will think they're that gender.

A lot. It's a smart thing to play as the opposite gender in MMOs as men are more likely to trade or gift items to or positively interact (group invites for example) with female characters.

Tends to be that male avatars look godawful and less inspiring. Whereas the combo of capable + sexy wins over 'hurr durr need to be straight'

 Sigvatr wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Yeah, it's not usually that hard to tell when someone's... "passing", I think the term would be.

I've seen some good drag kings/queens, but the average person on an MMO ain't.

This raises an interesting question. How many people are actually selecting their avatar on the assumption that people will think they're that gender.

A lot. It's a smart thing to play as the opposite gender in MMOs as men are more likely to trade or gift items to or positively interact (group invites for example) with female characters.

That is surprising to me. As I said on the last page about my only experience with MMO games is one where your avatar is 100% irrelevant except a tiny postage stamp sized picture next to your posts in chat (not even that if you turn the chat size down to save space).

Unless proven otherwise I always kind of assume that everybody I meet online is a disembodied brain in a vat or else some kind of AI. It really makes life much simpler.

I don't pretend to be female in video games, but when I'm having a laugh and pretending to be a girl in a chat room or something, I think I emulate them well. I noticed that women tend to hesitate longer between responses and use more emoticons years ago, so I do this, and my ruses have proven to be effective. They also tend to be less direct and vulgar online than they are in person, whereas men don't care. Pretending to be a girl online isn't that hard if you talk to a lot of girls IRL and text/instant message them often, but I don't imagine WoW players have much practice in that area, lol.

I have thirty two characters in WoW.... one is male. I also jump more than I probably should when leveling.. but that's partially as I am used to jump over terrain.. also I played Oblivion and Morrowind, and learnt its benefits there.

I also do limited RPG on WoW... might end up being a bit more in the future if Aura can get me involved more.. and I can roleplay quite convincingly when I need to. Based on observations by other female players, not so much my own viewpoint, although some who know me would suggest that's not a great surprise.

 Avatar 720 wrote:
I've never experienced any of this

You're lucky.

 Sigvatr wrote:
A lot. It's a smart thing to play as the opposite gender in MMOs as men are more likely to trade or gift items to or positively interact (group invites for example) with female characters.

Actually, playing as a guy in an MMO is better, because you're less likely to be harassed, making the game more pleasant.

Thankfully it's not as common on GW2 as on other MMOs. Still remember the various "Harem" clans that tried to invite me in in other games...

I think RPG servers.. if you stay out of one or two areas.. tend to feel different in that regard... a lot more female players and female avatars to boot overall.

 Melissia wrote:
Actually, playing as a guy in an MMO is better, because you're less likely to be harassed, making the game more pleasant.

Sadly, it does not make up for the oversized pauldrons.

 Fafnir wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Actually, playing as a guy in an MMO is better, because you're less likely to be harassed, making the game more pleasant.

Sadly, it does not make up for the oversized pauldrons.

Says you. I play MMOs for the gameplay, not to have some little gak with the voice of a ten year old ask "r you grl" repeatedly, and "offer" to cyber with me.

I jump constantly when I'm playing MMOs. Dunno why.

Also, if so many people spend their time staring at their character's ass rather than what's going on, this may explain why I feel like I'm constantly surrounded by people who have no idea what's going on whenever I manage to get some MMO group playtime in.

 Melissia wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:
I've never experienced any of this

You're lucky.

 Sigvatr wrote:
A lot. It's a smart thing to play as the opposite gender in MMOs as men are more likely to trade or gift items to or positively interact (group invites for example) with female characters.

Actually, playing as a guy in an MMO is better, because you're less likely to be harassed, making the game more pleasant.

Thankfully it's not as common on GW2 as on other MMOs. Still remember the various "Harem" clans that tried to invite me in in other games...

I have never experienced anything like this in years of online gaming, including 3 years of WoW.

 Melissia wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Actually, playing as a guy in an MMO is better, because you're less likely to be harassed, making the game more pleasant.

Sadly, it does not make up for the oversized pauldrons.

Says you. I play MMOs for the gameplay, not to have some little gak with the voice of a ten year old ask "r you grl" repeatedly, and "offer" to cyber with me.

Do people still do that?

I used to play the female avatar in the old BBC Micro game Citadel (1985) because when she jumped her pigtails flew out and the male character didn't have a cool move like that.

There was a lot of jumping in that game.

I usually jump to escape boredom. In WoW e.g. characters sometimes make a flip while jumping.

I'm a PC gamer more than tabletop gamer, that includes MMOs... heavily ; p I play a 50/50 split roughly between male and female chars. I don't play them any differently that I can tell and don't roleplay at all. Part of the discrepancy in how players act could be due to the roles chosen for those characters - my tank chars are usually male which tends to necessitate more decision making, female chars tend to be healers so tend to bitch about people standing in fire ; p The reason is to get a more diverse selection of characters to keep me interested... and if I have to look at a behind for hours on end... ; p

re. jumping I do it a lot. In WoW I do it to try to get flips out of my Night Elves and Blood Elves when I'm idling for some reason, don't do it for the other races anywhere near as much. In GW2 I do it to try and time a dodge jump so I roll in the air which requires precise timing. Also in general jumping is a way to get around quicker by more smoothly bypassing obstacles. I always beat ladies in our guild to places so it must work ; p